Vishal Sharma
On 22nd of this month, Lord Ram will finally have the place in Ayodhya that has always been his. Not that the whole world and the realms beyond are not his, but this particular site in Ayodhya, where he is believed to have been born and where his temple should have been raised and wasn’t, holds a special place in the hearts of Sanatanis.
Sanatanis have always wanted a magnificent temple for Ram lalla at the site of his birth in Ayodhya. The long wait of his devotees, or rather long due home coming of Lord Ram is, therefore, over!
Ram lalla holds a special place in the hearts of the Sanatanis. He is an exemplar of a perfect human being. His conduct in life is epitome of a perfect human behaviour, as it shines light on conflicting moral values and choices, which an individual has to confront in his life and how the demons in the mind have to be conquered and right moral judgements made.
Often these choices are not easy to make given the layered circumstances in which they emerge. And it is not always that one chooses right over wrong; there are occasions where wrong choices also get made.
It may be deliberate or beyond one’s control; but all of us often tend to misjudge or do not possess strong enough moral fibre to stand with the right. There may be this or that reason, but we always find wrong or evil to be more tempting or compelling in certain circumstances!
Lord Ram, seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu, came to earth to lead a life of a human to hew a path to salvation so other humans could take that path. And the world could be a better place !
Lord Ram’s life shows that he always put values above the constraints set up by the force of the circumstances. For Ram, the values of good and right were non negotiable. Between good and bad, Lord Ram always chose good regardless of the consequences.
In his life, his acts of sacrifice and renunciation were far greater in magnitude than what the humans can even imagine. His love, suffering and sacrifice to uphold the moral code he swore by created a one of its kind moral compass for the world; one which is revered by one and all to this day.
Lord Ram valued relationships and had great respect for everyone, including, sages, elders and his parents. He willingly chose to spend 14 years in a forest to honour his father’s word to his step mother. Although his step mother later tried to dissuade him from going on exile, he refused to relent saying that if he were to go back on his father’s pledge given to her, this would permanently taint the clan of King Raghu, for whom keeping the word was more important than the life itself. Therefore, in many ways, 14 year exilic period that Lord Ram spent in the forest was self imposed.
His conduct with Ketav, the boatman, who ferried him, his wife Sita and his half brother Laxman across Saryu river, on their way to a forest on exile, and the Sabri-poor old woman, who had nothing to offer but pure love was remarkable. He readily ate the fruit nibbled by Sabri even as Laxman initially hesitated to eat the Sabri’s offerings. The love and respect that he had for everyone was pure and sprang from his heart.
His sufferings transcended the conceivable bounds of human endurance. His resilience and fortitude in the face of kidnapping of his wife by Ravan, the demon king of Sri Lanka, manifested the integrity of his character. His stoicism in the face of adversity, and the belief that he will eventually defeat the demon king and rescue his wife revealed that a man needs to persevere and should have immutable faith that no matter how bad the circumstances are, good will always prevail over the evil.
Lord Ram’s sacrifice also holds a lesson for the mankind. When aspersions were cast upon Sita, Ram chose to banish her to a forest much against his wishes and in the interest of the raj dharma. For king Ram, raj dharma, which denotes the duty of a king to his subjects, was more important than the dharma of the husband, which signifies duty of a husband to his wife. Ram sacrificed all his pleasures for the welfare of his subjects upholding the true dharma.
Lord Ram’s life has taught us that the life’s goals are achieved by values and holism. Values refer to the moral, spiritual and ethical values and holism on the other hand is an idea which states that the wholeness of the nature is identifiable only by pursuing and finding unity and oneness within oneself. Only when the wholeness is pursued and discovered by a human being within that the connect with unity and oneness or wholeness outside can be established by him. Otherwise, the pursuit of oneness with the nature or outside the self is pointless.
Lord Ram is considered to be ‘purushttama’ or ‘maryada purusha’ for his uncompromising and untiring binding with the above core values, which has come to define the whole system of modern day Indian values and ethics.
Lord Ram is universally worshipped across India. For north Indians, Lord Ram is the greatest God- redeemer or moksha giver. In south India, Lord Shiva, Lord Kartikeya and Lord Vishnu have more devotees. Lord Hanuman, who is believed to have been from Kiskhinda, present day Karnataka, is also worshipped in south. Lord Hanuman worshipped Lord Ram, and Lord Ram is an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. As an incarnation of Lord Vishnu and swami of Lord Hanuman, the cord of Lord Ram with the Sanatanis in south is a strong as it can be.
Lord Ram is Sri Raman for Tamils and is worshipped through knowledge acquired from Kamba Ramayana. The connect of south India with Lord Ram is also obvious from this: as per the anecdotal evidence, nearly 40 % of people from south India are named after Ram. If twin boys are born, it is likely that their names will be Ram and Laxman.
If Ram is taken out of Indian values and ethics, there is nothing left behind. Lord Ram has an identity that is at once civilizational and the one which also transcends it. In Indian consciousness, he is both a religious and civilizational figure. Without Ram, there is no Indian civilization; there is no idea of India and, certainly, there is no Sanatan dharma.
22nd of January 2024 in that sense is an important date in history as on this day, Ram lalla’s idol will be placed and consecrated on the very site in Ayodhya he was born. For nearly five centuries, Lord Ram has looked on even as the real estate that has been his has been hotly contested. Come 22nd January, when the idols of Ram lalla are consecrated in the sanctum sanctorum amidst the chanting of vedic hymns, he will be back in Ayodhya to be the formal ruling deity of Awadesh or Koushal desh or Bharatvarsh in the eyes of his numerous devotees. He has always been the ruling deity of this world and the worlds beyond even when we could not decide on building a temple for him on his birth site. While Lord Ram did go on a self imposed exile for 14 years to preserve honour code of his clan, he has been on a forced exile from his birth site for nearly 500 years ! When on 22nd January, he returns, this will mark a religio-civilizational rebirth that Bharatvarsh has been longing for a very long time.
( The writer is a Milken IFC Fellow on Capital Markets)
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